Now this is what I was waiting for! The Intel X25-M is much faster and better than every other SSD on the market within reach of consumers’ price range, and it destroys hard drives’ performance in every metric. (Note that this is not the SSD that Apple optionally ships with any of their laptops.)

At its current price of $600 for 80 GB, it’s just not worth it for most people yet. But this is promising:

Wait. It took a year for SSDs to go from pretty slow and cost $2000 for 64GB to very fast and ~$600 for 80GB. In early 2009 Intel will have the next versions of the X25-M available and while still based on slower MLC NAND, will utilize a 34nm fabrication process as opposed to the current 50nm process. They will come in flavors exceeding 160GB.

Now that will be the dream setup. I’d gladly buy a 160 GB version for $600, and if they can lower the price to the $400 range, it’ll be massively popular.